经济学人50:功利主义者绝非善类

 　　Science and Technology

　　科技

　　Moral philosophy

　　道德哲学

　　Goodness has nothing to do with it

　　一点也不善良

　　Utilitarians² are not nice people

　　功利主义者绝非善类

　　IN THE grand scheme of things Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are normally thought of as good guys.

　　杰里米·边沁和约翰·斯图亚特·穆勒是公认的好好先生。

　　Between them, they came up with the ethical³ theory known as utilitarianism.

　　在伦理学上，他们提出了功利主义原则。

　　The goal of this theory is encapsulated in Bentham's aphorism⁴ that "the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation."

　　从边沁的名言"最多数人的最大幸福乃道德与立法之根本"，功利主义的原则可见一斑。

　　Which all sounds fine and dandy until you start applying it to particular cases.

　　听上去合情合理看上去美轮美奂，但是应用功利主义进行道德判断时就不是那么回事了。

　　A utilitarian¹, for example, might approve of the occasional torture of suspected terrorists—for the greater happiness of everyone else, you understand.

　　例如，功利主义者会同意特殊情况下对恐怖嫌疑人施以酷刑，你懂的，为了最多数人的最大幸福。

　　That type of observation has led Daniel Bartels at Columbia University and David Pizarro at Cornell to ask what sort of people actually do have a utilitarian outlook on life.

　　哥伦比亚大学的丹尼尔巴特斯和康奈尔大学的大卫皮塞罗观察到这一现象，使得他们发问，在现实生活中，功利主义者究竟表现为怎样的人。

　　Their answers, just published in Cognition, are not comfortable.

　　在他们最近合著的《认知》（Cognition）给出的答案了让人不安。

　　One of the classic techniques used to measure a person's willingness to behave in a utilitarian way is known as trolleyology.

　　"失控电车困境"是公认的经典方法，用来判断一个人是否乐意根据功利主义原则做决定。

　　The subject of the study is challenged with thought experiments involving a runaway⁶ railway trolley⁵ or train carriage.

　　在这个思维实验中，被调查者面临一部失控电车或者火车车厢带来的困境。

　　All involve choices, each of which leads to people's deaths.

　　而所有给出的选项都涉及人命。

　　For example: there are five railway workmen in the path of a runaway carriage. The men will surely be killed unless the subject of the experiment, a bystander in the story, does something.

　　假设，五个处于失控电车铁轨上的铁路工人危在旦夕，亟需站在横跨铁路的桥梁上的路人，也就是被调查者伸出援手。

　　The subject is told he is on a bridge over the tracks. Next to him is a big, heavy stranger.

　　被调查者旁边有另一个陌生的大胖子。

　　The subject is informed that his own body would be too light to stop the train, but that if he pushes the stranger onto the tracks, the stranger's large body will stop the train and save the five lives.

　　实验人员告诉被调查者，他身体太单薄难以阻挡电车，但是如果他把旁边的大胖子扔到铁轨中那么另外五个人将获救。

　　That, unfortunately, would kill the stranger.

　　但很不幸那个大块头则要死于非命。

　　Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro knew from previous research that around 90% of people refuse the utilitarian act of killing⁷ one individual to save five.

　　过去的调查中，巴特斯和皮塞罗博士知道大概90%的人都不选择杀一换五。

　　What no one had previously⁸ inquired about, though, was the nature of the remaining 10%.

　　但是从来没有人研究过剩下的10%的性格。

　　To find out, the two researchers gave 208 undergraduates a battery of trolleyological tests and measured, on a four-point scale, how utilitarian their responses were.

　　为了找出功利主义者如何应对，他们对208名在校大学生生发放了连串的关于"失控电车困境"问卷和他们性格的调查。

　　Participants were also asked to respond to a series of statements intended to get a sense of their individual psychologies⁹.

　　参与调查的人用严重同意到严重不同意四个等级回应一系列陈述，研究人员据此了解他们的精神状态。

　　These statements included, "I like to see fist fights", "The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear", and "When you really think about it, life is not worth the effort of getting up in the morning".

　　这些陈述包括"我喜欢看打斗场面"，"投其所好，是控制别人的最有效方式"，"如果你认真思考世界的话，每天早上就不值得起来"，每个陈述都要求被调查者在"严重同意"到"严重不同意"之间表明立场。

　　Each was asked to indicate, for each statement, where his views lay on a continuum that had "strongly agree" at one end and "strongly disagree" at the other. These statements, and others like them, were designed to measure, respectively, psychopathy, Machiavellianism and a person's sense of how meaningful life is.

　　以上的陈述及测试中的其他陈述分别旨在衡量参与者心理是否正常，是否是喜欢玩弄权术的马基雅维利主义者以及他是否觉得生命有意义。

　　Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro then correlated the results from the trolleyology with those from the personality tests. They found a strong link between utilitarian answers to moral dilemmas¹¹ (push the fat guy off the bridge) and personalities¹² that were psychopathic, Machiavellian¹⁰ or tended to view life as meaningless.

　　巴特斯和皮塞罗博士对"失控电车困境"和性格测试的结果归类发现，在道德困境问题中表现出功利主义（也就是把大块头扔下桥的人）大部分表现为心理阴暗，玩弄权术又或者对人生绝望。

　　Utilitarians, this suggests, may add to the sum of human happiness, but they are not very happy people themselves.

　　由此可见，尽管功利主义者或许能提高人类总体的幸福，但本身却不见得幸福。

　　That does not make utilitarianism wrong.

　　这并不是说功利主义不正确。

　　Crafting legislation—one of the main things that Bentham and Mill wanted to improve—inevitably involves riding roughshod over someone's interests.

　　边沁和穆勒一直追求更为公正的立法，但在这个过程中，某些人的利益无可避免的将被残酷打压。

　　Utilitarianism provides a plausible¹³ framework for deciding who should get trampled¹⁴.

　　功利主义者为打压提供了一种合理的理论。

　　The results obtained by Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro do, though, raise questions about the type of people who you want making the laws.

　　但巴斯滕和皮塞罗博士的研究却质问我们选举立法人员的准则。

　　Psychopathic, Machiavellian misanthropes¹⁵? Apparently¹⁶, yes.

　　心理阴暗，玩弄权术还有反人类的人可以立法吗？可以，大众很明显寄望这些人。

1 utilitarian   

adj.实用的，功利的

参考例句：

• On the utilitarian side American education has outstridden the rest of the world.在实用方面美国教育已超越世界各国。
• A good cloth coat is more utilitarian than a fur one.一件优质的布外衣要比一件毛皮外衣更有用。

2 utilitarians   

功利主义者，实用主义者( utilitarian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• But even fervent utilitarians should pay attention, for two reasons. 但是，即使狂热的功利主义者现在都该留神，这里有两个原因。

3 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

4 aphorism   

n.格言，警语

参考例句：

• It is the aphorism of the Asian Games. 这是亚运会的格言。
• Probably the aphorism that there is no easy answer to what is very complex is true. 常言道,复杂的问题无简易的答案,这话大概是真的。

5 trolley   

n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车

参考例句：

• The waiter had brought the sweet trolley.侍者已经推来了甜食推车。
• In a library,books are moved on a trolley.在图书馆，书籍是放在台车上搬动的。

6 runaway   

n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的

参考例句：

• The police have not found the runaway to date.警察迄今没抓到逃犯。
• He was praised for bringing up the runaway horse.他勒住了脱缰之马受到了表扬。

7 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

8 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

9 psychologies   

n.心理学( psychology的名词复数 )；心理特点；心理影响

参考例句：

• So the two branch of social psychologies will exist and develop eternally. 两种取向的社会心理学将永远存在和发展下去。 来自互联网
• What interests me most are psychologies, backgrounds and spotting winners. 最让我感兴趣的是心理特点、背景经历以及如何预判出佼佼者。 来自互联网

10 machiavellian   

adj.权谋的，狡诈的

参考例句：

• A Machiavellian plot was suspected.人们怀疑背后有不可告人的阴谋。
• In this layer,Obama implied American policies that are cautious and Machiavellian.在这个层面，奥巴马含蓄地表达了美国的谨慎、权谋的（新）政策。

11 dilemmas   

n.左右为难( dilemma的名词复数 )；窘境，困境

参考例句：

• They dealt with their dilemmas by mixing perhaps unintentionally an explosive brew. 他们――也许是无意地――把爆炸性的佐料混合在一起，以此来应付困难处境。 来自辞典例句
• Ten years later we encountered the same dilemmas in Vietnam. 十年后，我们又在越南遇到了同样进退两难的局面。 来自辞典例句

12 personalities   

n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There seemed to be a degree of personalities in her remarks.她话里有些人身攻击的成分。
• Personalities are not in good taste in general conversation.在一般的谈话中诽谤他人是不高尚的。

13 plausible   

adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的

参考例句：

• His story sounded plausible.他说的那番话似乎是真实的。
• Her story sounded perfectly plausible.她的说辞听起来言之有理。

14 trampled   

踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯

参考例句：

• He gripped his brother's arm lest he be trampled by the mob. 他紧抓着他兄弟的胳膊，怕他让暴民踩着。
• People were trampled underfoot in the rush for the exit. 有人在拼命涌向出口时被踩在脚下。

15 misanthropes   

n.厌恶人类者( misanthrope的名词复数 )

参考例句：

16 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。